Environmentally-Friendly Living
By Therèse Tappouni

When I ask what you mean by “the environment”, you would probably, as most do, form a mental picture of forests, factories, the ozone layer, pristine mountains or polluted cities. Some would see their home environment, but very few would picture their bodies, their relationships and their intimate life settings. Yet this is the environment we can actually control. Though we work hard as volunteers to save habitats, to recycle, turn off our lights or even march in Washington, our control over these environmental issues and people who pass the laws is slight, at best. Too often we overlook the areas of our lives where we can make a difference. Environmental control on a personal basis is one place where feedback and success are immediate and profound.

Let me give you a small example. You leave your place of work, head home, and realize you haven’t planned dinner — your husband’s car hadn’t started that morning, and by the time you helped him jump-start the car, you were late for work. You whip into your local store, creating a menu in your head when your cell phone rings. It’s your daughter, reminding you that you promised to bring refreshments to the Parent/Teacher meeting at school tonight, which is in less than two hours. You tell her you have it under control, to start on her homework and you’ll be there shortly.

Wheeling around the aisles in record time, you finish with cupcakes at the bakery, burying your guilt over feeding kids sugar after 7:00 p.m. Checking out, you can’t find your discount card, and in the process of looking, you dump your purse in the cart. The checker rolls her eyes at the line behind you, and you feel your thermostat rising. Now, here is the “blow your cork” time, and nobody would blame you if they knew about your day. You have another, more environmentally-friendly, choice. Take three deep breaths, smile at the clerk, and tell her to add a mixed bouquet of flowers to your groceries while you recover the contents of your purse.

When you get home, before you place the already-cooked chicken into the oven and the spring greens into your favorite crockery bowl, hug your daughter and put the flowers in a vase. Ask her about her day, and resolve to tell the story of the purse at dinner with a little dramatic flair. This is not denial, but a change in perspective that will change the environment in your self, your home and your child that will follow you through the evening. It doesn’t change anything that happened, but the view of it you chose, from many that were available, saved you from a flood of cortisol into your system that would have raised your blood pressure and damaged your internal environment.

Because you didn’t respond to the clerk’s attitude, the people in line behind you were shown an example that sent calming waves in their direction, affecting their environment. Most importantly, the chain of events you stopped with your conscious choice created a harmonious energetic environment in your home when you came through the door.

That’s a lot for a few deep breaths and a change in attitude. The only environment that we are completely in charge of is the one of choice: what environment do we choose to create in our bodies, our homes, our families and our communities? I have been dealing with the results of an accident experienced in November — one that requires me to labor over things that used to be a snap. I now inhabit a body that moves 50% slower than I ask it to. I have had to learn to speak gently to the parts of me that are not responding as I would like, and when I don’t, I find myself creating a personal environment of frustration that pollutes the environment of the home I share with my partner, negatively impacting his personal environment.

None of this is new, but we don’t think about it in quite this way. The power we have over our surroundings, whether within or without our bodies, is the result of thoughts and actions directed outward or inward, and our awareness of the energy we control. No one disputes the flow of energy, but we need to begin to see this as our own immediate environment, as personal a microcosm as the weather. We decide whether our days will be filled with sun and gentle energies or dark and thundering storms of electrical impulses that zap our relationships with self and others.

I frequently teach processes where I tell people that “I’m not saying this will be easy.” In the case of personal environmental control, that is not the case. It is easy. Once we begin to see clearly and try the “three deep breaths and a change in perspective”, it becomes second nature. We will fail occasionally, sometimes consciously, but overall, we will become environmentally friendly.

Therèse Tappouni lives in California and Florida, and is the co-director of ISIS Institute with her partner, Lance Ware. She is a Somatic Intuitive Practitioner, counselor, author of “Walking Your Walk: A Woman’s Guide to a Spirit-Filled Life” and the novel “A Time to Reap”. Her new CD of visualizations and meditations titled “The Promise: Walking Your Path of Truth”, has just been released, soon to be followed by a book of the same name. For appointments or information, contact her at:  www.IsisInstitute.org or Ttappouni@aol.com  or (805) 231-0184.

Return to the March/April Index page